The Mosaic

One of my goals in this fellowship was to really know American culture in site, not just from movies, TV and music. Part of our job as journalists is to listen to our readers, and we need to do it now more than we ever needed. I could say that this job allows me to listen to people more than other jobs – or at least that’s the way it was supposed to be.
I've been writing a lot about Brazil lately. In part because of the lack of covering about my country here at the Inquirer, and also because I can easily find stories here in Philly that other reporters can't find without speaking Portuguese.
Two of those stories generated some readers’ response - comments in the website, e-mails or voice messages in my phone. And I've got some awkward feedback, to say the least. My feature story about how Brazilians in Philadelphia are suffering with this economic crisis burst some very angry comments saying that my countrymen are just a bunch of selfish people who are taking advantage from American tax payers. I'm a little surprised to hear complaints about "greed", "selfishness" and "they just care about making money" in the country that, in the last century, defined the idea of making money as a lifestyle.
You can find immigration tensions almost everywhere, so I won't discuss how wrong the notion of “immigrants sucking all our tax money” is. Let me tell you about the feedback from a story about an American father who is trying to get his son back from a Brazilian family - his ex-wife (the boy's mother) took him to Brazil 5 years ago. After she died, last year, a judicial battle between the father and the mother's family, including her second husband, started in Brazil.
I wrote the story and received two e-mails. Take a look on part of the first one.

"Shame on you, Mr. Muzell. To title your story, “Boy sides with Brazilian
relatives….” Shame on you!
I cannot imagine that you are a father, Mr. Muzell. If you are, when you go home tonight, take a look at your child and imagine someone taking him or her away from you. (...) Now imagine opening up your morning newspaper and reading an article written by some – pardon me – idiot journalist who was too lazy to research the subject he’s written on that tells the world that your child has “freely” chosen to remain with his abductors."

The title was different in the print edition, and she complained about the website title, which was indeed inaccurate since the matter is highly debatable. I changed it at once and e-mailed her back. My considerations about her calling me "idiot" - I don't know about here, but that is rather offensive where I came from -, are below:

"This case is indeed very sad and complicated. I wouldn’t write anything without
informing myself the best I can. Because of the strong emotions rose by this sad
story, I understand your disappointment. But I can not accept personal offenses.
I believe nobody goes anywhere by calling anyone of “idiot” or “lazy”. Anything
good can come from that. (...)
I would be thrilled if you keep letting me
know about any mistakes in my stories. But I won’t even read anything that you
write me if you call me “idiot” or any use any other offensive word again."

I got other message after that, which I didn't even bother to answer since it wasn't anything pointed to me directly. The guy just made some considerations about the case to me.

"First bad move this man made was marrying a gold digger bimbo from Brazil. He
must be one stupid guy. Poor [father's name] saw that hot Brazilian shake her
booty and that is all he could think about. Miss Brazil was looking for a fast
ticket to the promised land called U.S.A. when she hooked up with sucker
[father's name].
Brazil sounds real romantic and exotic but anyone who has
ever been there knows it is nothing more than a gigantic version of Haiti with
all the similar attributes . . . poverty, ignorance, corruption, high homicide
rate, blatant crime on the streets and on the beaches. [father's name] should re-group and find himself a nice Jewish girl from New York or North Jersey."

Everybody knows that even if you are the hardest critic of your country, when you're abroad you tend to become more nationalist. I'm abroad, so you know one of my biases on this.
I have to recognize that we do have gold digger bimbos, poverty, homicides and all sort of trouble in Brazil (and over the world). And we certainly have selfish Brazilians here just to make money and come back. Not that I think the reader is right in either of the cases I wrote about.

I also know how dumb a reader can be and how offensive he can get behind a computer keyboard. That's no news.

I didn't get offended - in fact, I couldn't care less about what people think of Brazil. But I couldn't help to be impressed with the hate levels I sensed in all that.

Again, I wouldn't take that as a portrait of America. I know better than that. But the whole picture I'm slowly drawing in these months I’m here is certainly influenced by that - as it was also influenced by all good stuff I'm experiencing here. Perhaps, in the end of the day, we all just get random pieces of everything. What we have to keep in mind is that the picture will be a mosaic, not a 10 megapixel photo.